To manage the fund, Yahoo partnered with Harry Wu—a noted Chinese dissident turned powerful anti-China activist—and his nonprofit, the Laogai Research Foundation. But Wu grossly mismanaged YHRF, spending less than $650,000—or 4%—of the fund’s total $17.3 million on support for online dissidents, according to the current lawsuit. One year, YHRF allegedly spent $0 on what was meant to be its primary purpose. (Some defendants contest these calculations.)

    • Tankiedesantski [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      11 months ago

      I lived in Shanghai for many years and I just want to add that while there’s more than a few of these Gusanos floating around, the majority of the people are pretty cool and many of them are very patriotic.

    • cayde6ml@lemmygrad.ml
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      11 months ago

      Is this because Shanghai is often viewed as a technologically advanced yet morally depraved equivalent to Las Vegas, in China?

      I hope that I’m able to move to Shanghai one day.

      • ComradeSalad@lemmygrad.ml
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        11 months ago

        Shanghai was a primary “treaty city” meaning it was EXTREMELY heavily influenced by the western world and liberal ideology for nearly 2 centuries.

        Its also a financial capital, meaning its full of bankers, investment moguls, and the ultra rich.

        • cayde6ml@lemmygrad.ml
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          11 months ago

          Yeah, I get all of that. From what I’m seeing though, it hopefully looks to be shedding that reputation piece by piece.

          • ComradeSalad@lemmygrad.ml
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            11 months ago

            Not really in all honesty, China needs a financial capital for the time being, and Shanghai has worked perfectly for that. Little changed has happened there, and it is a major international hub, so the influence persists.

            Hopefully in the near future.

        • cayde6ml@lemmygrad.ml
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          11 months ago

          I’ve often seen and made the comparison myself that Shanghai is the “NYC of the East”, with a bit of Las Vegas, Philadelphia, Singapore and Texas built-in.